I have lots of photos from inside the BMW Museum, and from inside the BMW Welt. Here is a couple I thought were cool. This sign on the floor of the Welt was not really obvious, I walked over it several times without noticing...until I was up three floors!
Here is one looking across the street from the Welt parking towards the 3-Series factory attached to the (4-Cylinder) BMW Headquarters:
I can post more of these types of images if anyone would like to see them, but I've had difficulty getting internet and getting things uploaded, so I will focus on the 1M for this update. Let me know if you like the other topics and I'll expand on them another time.
After visting the Museum and taking the Welt Tour, we headed to a special place...BMW Canada and Budd's BMW worked with BMW M-Studio to arrange a meeting with the engineering staff who created the 1M. What a treat...
We had an hour of time with the team who designed and tested all the compenents and set the lap time for Nurburgring. It was sooo cool. We pulled up front at the BMW-M Facility in Garching and Azedeh from M Customer Relations met us and guided us inside, through security and took us and the 1M right inside the M-Studio
This bunch of people were a riot...what a job they must have! The camaraderie these guys had with each other was apparent. The joking and teasing was great. But they taught us a lot.....
I was trying to remember all the questions I had to ask about the car....and the Moto GP Car of course!! I now know why those twelve people who won the trip to see the car early in the marketing didn't have many bad things to say, and why they felt the 1M truly was an M-Car.
If you think about it, going through our questions, the following items were addressed by this bunch of engineers:
- Front Strut Bar - If you din't see it on the marketing cars....you will...There is a massive metal ring on the top of each strut tower that has beams attached to them that run back to the firewall. Completely different than the 135i
- Extra Water Cooler: Driver side front
- Upgraded Power Steering Cooler
- Upgraded Rack Ratio
- Completely different tune, although on a very similar engine. - We were describing how we were driving the car trying to make the appointment at M and one engineer told me, "the only reason you haven't spun it is becuase you left the traction control on...." He also dropped that this would occur because....there is more under that pedal than might be printed in a brouchure....
These two crazy guys did the transmission, engine mapping and differential.
- Lightweight Flywheel, a lot lighter, as described to us, its as light as could possibly be used in a dual mass application.
- Dry Sump Light weight transmission, totally new for this application
- New Driveshaft, lightweight to addapt to the new transmission
- M3 Differentialwith dynamics for the shorter wheelbase considered with integrated cooling fins
- Complete M3 suspension - Control Arms, Shocks, and other components. The shocks use the stock points as the M3s do, however, they are completely different for compression and rebound, similarly the bushing are the same size etc, however, are cast for the 1M application, Sway Bars and something else I'm forgetting right now....Ask away, you might jog my memory.
Brian, Director of Sales & Marketing BMW M with my friend Steve.
- Brakes....I lost nights of sleep wondering why they used the brakes they chose...here's why: When they tested the 6 piston upgraded brakes from the 135i they had very high temperatures, and issues with the rotors given the cars extra HP and speed. They jumped from these to the E92 M3 Brakes to see if it would improve things, and it did...but for good measure they tried the M3 GTS brakes (Floating Caliper) and some aftermarket as well, but found the GTS brakes to be too loud, too expensive and no better performance (in this application) then the regular E92 M3 brakes. All they had to do was recalibrate the Vehicle Dynamics, ABS etc, and change the rear pads to a different compound to compensate for the shorter wheelbase, lower weight and the way the car reacted on a couple of the messier corners at Nurburgring. The E92 M3 brakes offer the ability to use rotors that have the swept area mounted to the hat via vertical posts. These verticle posts allowed the rotor to expand and contract considerably, consistently, repeatedly without having rotors issues. These rotors were designed to be used with the E92 Calipers...and those Calipers were designed to be used with the M3 Competition wheels...therefore...
Speaking of M3 GTSs
- M3 Wheels -I started asking about this by saying...I tend not to sell cars...I buy them and sorta keep them eternally. When I get the car home from Germany I will mothball the original wheels for another day and replace them with daily runners: Money no object, what should I buy and what size should they be (This is where I started hinting at the Moto GP Car)? The answer was don't change anything too much. Funny enough they asked if remembered the Gold wheels from the test mule? I did. The recommedation was to find a wheel that was STIFF enough for the challenge, size was not the first consideration. They chose the BBS becuase they were strong and would distort very little under the load a 1M could deliver. The M3 Competion wheels were the strongest wheel they could fit over the brakes comfortably and were designed for end user use. After exhaustive tire testing, the tires they choose also fit the M3 Competion Wheels perfectly, viola. The one caveat was that if wheels that retained the stiffness of the originals or better, and were lighter, they would make a great addition.
- Tires - Nobody was naming names. But we were given a bunch of model numbers and sizes that were tested and the PS2s were found to be simply the best. They also said in regards to changing the wheels and tires that the car had the biggest tires it could use, biggers ones would bring little beneft in its current config. I asked about the Moto GP car with the 255/285 Combo and found out these fine people built that car too...and the bigger versions provided little to no gain. The biggest differnce was that the front wheels on the Moto GP car was pushed out 5mm to clear the KWs. The rest was more for looks and to be different.
- Bodywork - Everybody knows this part...its wide. People were just short of causing multi car accidents trying to give us "thumbs up signs" in traffic. People from all walks of life notice it and respond.
- Interior - M-Button - Keep forgetting to try this, anther post. You all know the rest here too. stitching, Alcantara, Pedals, M insignia on the leather seats, Gauges, Shift Knob (not lit), Steering wheel. I picked up the rubber floor mats and the touch up paint at the BMW Welt before I left, couldn't resist...40 Euro, done. You ask why I would buy the touch up paint...well I'll tell you tomorrow....
Basically, there has been so many parts of this thing that have been massaged, that it's hard not to consider it a real M car. I'll take flak for this statement I'm sure, but you can't buy all the stuff and the engineering expertise to make it work so flawlessly for anywhere near what BMW has charged as a premium. I'd pay it again.
Here's where I'm working from now to get this done:
We're siting outside a locked building with an unlocked wifi network. Two feet in any direction and we have no more connection....
As a parting gift, the whole Engineering staff for the 1M signed a Dealer Poster for the 1M as a gift to take home. Thank you very much everybody, what fun we've had on this trip so far!
Freezing our tails off. Signing on again tomorrow with much more, and more about driving the car. 'Nite